Nov 11, 2013

Canadian mobile phone maker BlackBerry is getting ready for the release of new flavors of its BlackBerry 10 operating system, and a recently leaked build has unveiled more on the company’s plans on the matter.

Featuring version number 10.2.01.845, the leaked OS offered a glimpse at upcoming enhancements such as BlackBerry Blend Dashboard, Fuse Mode, and Pic Password. Apparently, BlackBerry is gearing up for bringing its messaging features to the desktop, and the leaked 10.2.1 build unveiled that a new Fuse Mode has been included in the OS, and that it is enabled when connecting the smartphone to an external display. Basically, users will be able to access the Hub, BBM, SMS/MMS, Browser, Contacts, Calendar, and the like while having the smartphone connected to some sort of a dock, with all the viewing being made on a large screen, CrackBerry explains.

At the same time, the leaked operating system version shows evidence of Pic Password capabilities coming to BlackBerry 10 in the not too distant future. For those out of the loop, we should note that this is a security feature that would allow users to unlock their devices through performing gestures on a selected photo. Microsoft has implemented a similar feature in Windows 8, but things are a bit different when it comes to BlackBerry 10.2.1, it seems. Here, users will be provided with an overlay of numbers on top of the selected photo, and will have to move one number to a specific area of the picture, as shown in the video embedded below.

The aforementioned BlackBerry 10.2.1 build is already available for download for interested parties, though it is not very safe to install on devices for everyday use, it seems. One way or the other, it won’t be long before more builds leak online and additional details on forthcoming versions of BlackBerry 10 are unveiled, so stay tuned to learn the news.

One of the features that Google has implemented inside the Android 4.4 operating system is support for displaying the battery percentage in the status bar, though the feature is still rough around the edges, it seems.

The feature is said to be hidden by default on Nexus 5, though users can easily enable it through an ADB shell command, Android Police reports. To enable the option, one would need to enter the adb shell content insert --uri content://settings/system --bind name:s:status_bar_show_battery_percent --bind value:i:1 adb reboot command.

As soon as the device reboots, the percentage indicator would appear in the status bar, though it will be inside the battery icon, and will sport white digits, which makes it a bit difficult to see. Those who don’t fancy ADB can enable the feature by using an application coming from the XDA Developers forum.